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The DA welcomes the honest assessment by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) Administrator, Freeman Sithembiso Nomvalo, in his media briefing on Tuesday, as well as the interventions implemented to address the various challenges at the Scheme.

The past few years have revealed a host of issues that plague NSFAS. There have been allegations of corruption and fraud with both the direct payment system and the student accommodation online portal service providers and student accommodation accrediting agents tenders; late payments of allowances to students have caused interrupted studies, hunger, and destitution; allegations of kickbacks to former Higher Education Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, and his South African Communist Party (SACP); and the use of SARS data to allegedly discriminate against students thereby allegedly breaching the memorandum of understanding between NSFAS and SARS, as well as the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) to name but a few.

While we commend the Administrator’s proposals to address many of NSFAS’ issues, the DA will keep a close eye on the progress of these interventions and request that NSFAS account to Parliament in the third term. The DA’s Alternative Funding Model might provide valuable solutions for the proposed Organisational Re-engineering and Re-alignment Project, especially if government hopes to address the issue of higher education provision for the missing middle students.

The ICT and Business Processing Review Project must be stringently assessed at every point to ensure that not a single cent is wasted and the systems developed are completely fit for purpose with no room for abuse.

The direct payment of all NSFAS students without the use of direct payment partners should be explored as a matter of urgency after the apparent success of paying TVET students this way. It seems to have the added benefit of rooting out ghost students.

Issued by Desiree van der Walt MP - DA Deputy Spokesperson on Higher Education